


corrections

by onelater



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: !!! poppin bottles, (Or at least attempting so), Accidental Confession, Aziraphale Loves Humanity (Good Omens), Aziraphale thinks humanity is cute, Comedy, Crowley accidentally submits to the Mortifying Ordeal, Crowley's emotional constipation, Crowley's thought process is something, Drunken Confession, Frolicking with the powers of occult beings, Love Confession, Love as an abstract concept, M/M, Mild Angst with a happy ending, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, More tags probably to come, My First Fanfic, Oh yeah T for alcohol usage, Reinterpreting several canon powers for the sake of plot, The Arrangement (Good Omens), color symbolism, crowley is bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2020-06-23 19:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19707754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onelater/pseuds/onelater
Summary: Aziraphale sighed. “You’re acting a little strange, my dear.”Crowley could have screamed. “Strange?” he said.--The mortifying ordeal of being known, but make it a comedy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is pretty much my first fic ever. I don't have a beta/editor, but I do have chutzpah! So I hope you enjoy it, lemme know what you think. Am genuinely jus here for a laff x

It is a fine summer day in London, and Anthony J Crowley is wallowing.

It’s been quite a good wallow, actually; quite a lot of staring out of windows, resting his head in his hand and then sliding that hand up and down his face, and sending complaints -- some verbal, some silent and fuming -- up to the Big Woman Up Top. It is, to be clear, _not_ a brood. Brooding is a different breed of stewing. The form is somewhat similar (for a textbook brood, sit in a room, close the blinds, put your chin atop your fist pensively and grumble to an unseen other; for a textbook wallow, sit in a room, close the blinds, put your head in your hands and grumble to an unseen other), but only to an untrained eye, really. Brooding is for when the anger is directed outward; wallowing is for when it's inward. It's like dolphins and whales. Or is it rectangles and squares? Trapezoids and triangles? Anyway.

The point is that Crowley is not brooding. He would know; he's had plenty of practice in both fields. He was around for the invention of both terms, and had delighted in experimenting with their applications. 

He had brooded over a wide variety of things. For example: God flooding the Earth, forcing Crowley to use many a demonic miracle to make room for the other locals in the Ark; Aziraphale and him getting into a spat over Shakespeare, leading to a short-lived silent treatment before Crowley caved; being bested as the Black Knight, which meant he had to abandon what was quickly becoming his favorite pseudonym; when Aziraphale refused to give him the holy water; that time a high-as-a-kite club goer called him a twink; when Aziraphale refused to run away with him the first time; when Aziraphale refused to run away with him the second time; when Aziraphale refused to run away with him the th-- _well_. Anyway.

He had also wallowed over a number of things, though more privately. For example: when disco died; when Aziraphale bought him those oysters and kept making secretive glances at him from across the table, like they were sharing in some clandestine adventure, just the two of them; when Aziraphale called him, for the first time, over far too many glasses of wine to be responsible for anything that left his mouth, his "friend;" after Aziraphale gave him the holy water, and the disturbingly meaningful conversation that followed; when Aziraphale refused to run away with-- well. You get the picture.

The picture being one of a Crowley who knows his stuff about wallowing and brooding and stewing. And this, right now, is a potent wallow. He’s kept it up for nearly forty-eight hours now, and in excellent form: the shades are drawn, only parted for intermittent bouts of pensive yearning; his phone is set to automatic voicemail; he’s even gone positively twenty-first century, a _Sad Songs for When You Need to Wallow_ playlist mumbling through his gramophone. He usually goes for a more traditional route, but he’d already played “Landslide” far too many times for it to be healthy, and besides, he had reasoned as he queued up the playlist, a little change never hurt anybody. (Then Mitski started playing, and Crowley decided, yes, a little change did sometimes hurt a body.)

He had made a plan. A wonderful plan; a thorough plan. A plan that was a long time coming. Forty-five minutes coming, to be exact. He’d decided, about halfway through watching Aziraphale enjoy an entree at the Ritz, that he was tired of it. Fully fed up; he was at his limit. Six thousand years of torment, this far, no further: on the way home, he was going to talk things through with Aziraphale. He was going to, on an unusually slow (and, to Aziraphale, unusually pleasant) ride back to the bookshop, bring up their relationship, somehow, and eventually get around to the saying-of-the-feelings, and then… then… oh, he doesn’t know. He never really worked that kink in the plan out. 

It’s not like he would ever expect Aziraphale to reciprocate or anything; maybe he wants him to, but he-- well-- he can’t sense love the way Aziraphale can. Not that he’s oblivious to anything either; he’s flirted with a few humans in the past, mostly to try and get benefits at bars and the like, and he knows the signs. It’s just, he has never seen Aziraphale really flirt. He’s too earnest for it. A compliment is just a compliment. A smile of pride is just a smile of pride. There’s no reading in between the lines when the lines themselves just say it all. It’s part of the reason Crowley admires Aziraphale so much. He just can’t imagine being so open all the time. Wouldn’t it sting after a while, being vulnerable like that? He’d tried it once or twice, and only while smashed drunk. The last time he’d tried it didn’t feel very good, either; not his angel’s fault, of course. There had been a world to save, after all.

It didn’t matter, Crowley found, that he didn’t know where he was going with the plan. You don’t have to work out step five, after all, if you never finish step one. He had tried, of course. He really had intended to go through with it. After dinner, he’d been a proper gentleman -- footed the bill, not that it mattered, opened the passenger side door for Aziraphale, nearly died when a grateful smile slid smoothly onto Aziraphale’s face. But it was just -- then they were in the car, and he was driving Aziraphale home, and Crowley couldn’t figure out where to start. What was he supposed to say? _Hey, Aziraphale, funny thing, just thought you ought to know, I’ve been fervently in love with you for the past three- to six-thousand years. Fancy that! Anyway, what d’you want to do for lunch tomorrow?_ Absolutely un-fucking-tenable.

“Crowley? Are you alright?” Aziraphale had asked after five-or-so minutes of near silence, pulling him out of his spiral at the wheel. 

“Hnh?” Crowley responded, intelligently.

Aziraphale sighed. “You’re acting a little strange, my dear.”

Crowley could have screamed. “Strange?” he said-not-whimpered instead, feeling a little lightheaded.

“Well, yes. You’re unusually quiet, for one thing.” Crowley opened his mouth to respond, but Aziraphale barreled forward, “You keep making as if you’re about to say something, and then- nothing. You-- for Heaven's sake, your driving is even _tolerable_ right now--”

At that, Crowley turned his head away from the road to look at Aziraphale in near sincere offense, bringing the poor man moments from a heart attack -- “Eyes on the _road,_ Crowley, _honestly_!” -- and successfully diverting his attention from the matter at hand and toward flustering about road safety. At least, for a little while. They got within a few short blocks from the bookshop before it started again. Some punk song Crowley liked very much was on the radio, but he couldn't quite hear it over the loud feeling of Aziraphale's eyes studying him with renewed interest. 

"What is it now?" Crowley asked, glancing at him from behind his sunglasses. When Aziraphale didn't respond, he said, "You're staring again."

Aziraphale blinked a bit, like he hadn't even realized. "Sorry, sorry. It’s nothing."

_Thank God_. Crowley started to pull onto the side of the road just outside Aziraphale's place, slotting the Bentley carefully between a Harley and a Jeep. Damn Jeeps. Take up so much space. Who's the one who did that, anyway? Was that a Heaven or a Hell thing? Not that Crowley really cared, but it was all that was keeping him from thinking about--

Aziraphale sighed as Crowley threw the car in reverse. “It’s just that…” He watched Crowley with peculiar focus as he turned to look behind them, avoiding eye contact with Aziraphale by locking eyes with the Forester. "I just…" 

Crowley put the parking brake on and turned to look at Aziraphale, whose sentence had trailed off at length. He had this expression on his face of pure consternation. It was quite cute actually; there was a little line between his eyebrows where they drew together, a little line, and Crowley thought about reaching over and smoothing it out with the pad of his thumb. It deepened further as Aziraphale took a thoughtful breath and said, far too meaningfully, "Sometimes, I just don't know what goes on in that head of yours." 

The misplaced weight of his words hit Crowley's chest like... like, a... like something really heavy, that winds someone when they get hit with it. For a few moments he couldn't even think of what to say -- well, no, not quite. He knew what he wanted to say: There was just too much. _What does that mean?! What does anything you say ever fucking mean?! You say such simple shit and it never sounds simple and it tears me to bits!_ or, _No, it's all quite simple, really, when you get down to it, it's really all quite simple and it's mostly about you._ But it all just got stuck up in there, like a wad of gum jamming up an overworked garbage disposal, like a cat choking on its hairball, terrified and betrayed by its own bodily functions. _I don’t know yours either,_ he wanted to say. _I don’t know yours either and I desperately, desperately want to._

Eventually what came out of him was, "Truth be told, not much, usually.”

Aziraphale smiled then, closed-lipped, and shook his head in acute angles. “I don’t think that’s true,” he murmured, his eyes falling from Crowley’s. He unbuckled his seatbelt, opened his door, and stepped onto the street with a gentle, "Good night, Crowley." Then he was gone.

On the way home, Crowley kicked himself.

Then, when he got home, he kicked himself some more -- hence The Wallow.

This always happens. Always with these puzzling little double-conversations where he’s unsure if he’s read too much or too little into the content. Sometimes, god damn the man, Aziraphale just says the most mundane things, but there’s so much behind it -- so _blasted much_ that Crowley just never knows how to sort through. _You go too fast for me, Crowley._ There’s a little Crowley in the back of his head sitting in front of an enormous movie screen playing that moment constantly. He eats popcorn, sips red slushie, and tries desperately to understand what had gone wrong. He remembers the whole thing to every hand-written letter. 

He remembers the slight tingle of Aziraphale’s heavenly presence mingling abruptly with the atoms of his Bentley. He remembers the shock that passed through his body as he accepted the flannel thermos, and the tenseness of Aziraphale’s every muscle, and the way he kept saying -- as he always did -- that he didn’t want Crowley to get hurt, like somehow, Aziraphale was the shepherd to Crowley’s lamb, like he was not the Snake of Eden but the fragile animal that Crowley knew lived beneath the surface of his skin. The whole interaction left him feeling rather raw in a way he didn’t know what to do with. He had tried to push it away, into the back of his memory, but it rubbed at him, like slightly too-loose shoes bobbing up and down against his heels, leaving blisters. ( _How long have we been friends? Six thousand years!_ The bloody Turkish Empire could have risen and fallen tenfold in that time.)

After he left Aziraphale’s bookshop, another little Crowley jumped up, grabbed a tub of popcorn, and moved into a theater just down the line to start its deep dive into another new, oddly tender moment. He felt raw once again -- vulnerable, really, like a turtle wobbling around on its back, legs flailing slowly and belatedly and uselessly through thick, swampy air. He felt like Aziraphale had picked him up by his spine and read him, then graciously decided to let him lick his papercut wounds. He felt like he had been laid entirely bare. And this is when Aziraphale says he _doesn't_ understand Crowley. He shudders to think how it would feel if Aziraphale actually knew everything, if it was all somehow even clearer than it was then and is now.

Moments like these always remind him so much of so many things. The first that always comes to mind is the Garden. The rain, grotesque and new, was about to fall. Neither him nor Aziraphale knew what it was going to be; the only water they had ever encountered was of the holy variety, and the precipitation was to fall from just where all that guck usually came from. He hadn’t expected Aziraphale to offer him his wing so readily. For a moment, he looked back to the Garden, wondering if he’d have to duck for cover. But of course Aziraphale didn’t give him the time to scamper off. Instead, that beautiful, golden-hearted bastard, he’d offered Crowley shelter. A demon. He’d offered it to a demon -- the first one he’d met in his life, too. That kind of trust, just… 

Crowley has long since forgotten how to be gracefully vulnerable. He’s seen Aziraphale do it so many times that by now he probably should’ve absorbed the knowledge socially. Seen him open up for the most unremarkable things. An old lady thanking him for walking her across the street. A herd of ducklings quacking in joy after being reunited with their mother. A favor Crowley did him. This last one had created a sort of Pavlovian tick within Crowley, who now finds himself unable to keep from flitting about time and space, trying desperately to find ways to make Aziraphale glow with happiness. He has, Crowley thinks with a wry, self-deprecating smile, become something of an expert in pining after Aziraphale.

He has, in point of fact, become much, much more than an expert.

Malcolm Gladwell writes in "Outliers" that it takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert. It's usually after that point that the practitioner will "make their big break," as it were. The Beatles, for example -- they were never really Crowley's favorite band, he was more of a punk fan, but he couldn't deny the fervor that swept the English-speaking world when they debuted. By 1964, around-about when "I Want to Hold Your Hand" hit the chart and the band started to make it big, they had performed something like twelve hundred times. Given the average length of a concert -- usually an hour or two -- that amounts to somewhere between twelve- to twenty-four-thousand hours of performance practice. But that's generally excessive; Bill Joy, sometimes called the Edison of the Internet, placed his practice time pre-expertise at "maybe ten thousand?" hours in an interview with Gladwell. Ten thousand hours. Keep this figure in mind: it's time for a quick math problem.

Crowley and Aziraphale have known each other, Crowley would estimate, for around six thousand years. But that’s not quite exact enough for a studious mathematician. The Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at 9:13 in the morning. Seven days later, Adam and Eve ate an Apple, found themselves graciously gifted a flaming sword from an unknown interloper, and promptly took an extended vacation from the Garden. It was on this day, just after the Apple had been bitten and just before the first rain took its first tentative steps onto the virgin Earth, that one demon, then Crawly, now Crowley, and one angel, Aziraphale, met. 

It was a rather nice day. All the days had been nice. The birds chirped contentedly, the branches of the trees leaned heady and inviting with fat fruit, and one lean, satisfied reptile slithered his way ramblingly along the wall enclosing the Garden, basking in the sun. It had made about halfway through the sky by that point. Crowley remembers this specifically because he couldn’t help feeling maybe a little smug at having already finished his temptations for the day at such an efficient pace. We’ll call this maybe noon, on Sunday the 28th of October, 4004 B.C. _This_ is where it all starts – a little _over_ six thousand years ago, since we’re going to nitpick. As of today, the 26th of June, 2019, at 2:43pm, that will have been 6,014 years, 8 months, 2 days, 2 hours and 43 minutes, not accounting for leap years.

In Gladwell’s terms, that would be –-

_6,015 yrs x 365 days x 24 hours + 8 months x 30.5 days x 24 hours + 2 days x 24 hours + 2.72 hours_

\-- 52,697,306.72 hours, or, in units of 10,000 hours spent practicing, which we will call _Gladwells_ , about 5,269.73 GWs. That is, to be clear, nearly 5,300 times the amount of practice any revered master in the history of the world spent practicing for their magnum opus. The amount of time shared between the two of them is the equivalent of 5,300 Leonardo Da Vincis painting 5,300 _Mona Lisa_ s _,_ 5,300 _Beatles_ es going through 5,300 dingy, late-night performances, 5,300 teenage Bill Joys programming late into the night in front of 5,300 ancient computers _._ Crowley could rustle up a small army of classical artists from Hell and ask them to impart the whole of their knowledge and experience, and after the last one described the last second of their artistic career, Crowley would have still spent more time thinking about Aziraphale than all of that combined.

Fascinating. All this time and he still hasn’t gotten to Hold Aziraphale’s Hand.

\--

The gramophone, having now run out of tracks on the playlist and with a proponency to -- much like Bentley -- mock him, decides that now of all times would be an excellent time for one of the Beatles’ greatest hits. Crowley shuts his ears and screws his eyes tight against it, wondering why on bloody Earth he ever decided to give his shit a sense of humor. He sends a strongly worded thought to the gramophone, but the gramophone doesn’t care. As though to laugh at him, it ticks the music up a few decibels. Crowley then reminds it that he can send it with just a snap of his fingers up to the North Pole, with all the cold and the polar bears and the lack of electricity, at which point it shuts up completely, leaving Crowley to his thoughts in dead silence.

“Good lord,” Crowley says to no one. “I’ve lost control of my life. I’m arguing with a record player.”

“Crowley? Is that you in there?”

Crowley stiffens. That’s Aziraphale. He’s in no state to have Aziraphale seeing him; flounced against his couch, all despairing, gramophone sulkily playing ska-punk to the corner. He has a passionate, if momentary, thought of miracling the door shut, getting himself collected, and maybe jumping through a window. Of course, there’s no time for that -- Aziraphale just sweeps right into his room, barely a knock at the door frame, and whatever happened to ringing doorbells?

“Crowley, are you-- oh, good heavens; are you brooding again?” he huffs, apparently having answered it for himself, and Crowley grumbles, “I’m not _brooding,_ ” quite honestly, because he isn’t, and he worked too hard on this wallow not to protest. He doesn’t bother to correct his terminology, however; that sort of conversation would end in all too much unpacking of statements, and he doesn’t want to clutter up the room. He sits up gracelessly and takes off his glasses to squint at the angel as he bumbles past. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Sitting here with the shades drawn,” Aziraphale tuts, striding over to the windows and flashing in the light, adamantly ignoring Crowley and his groan. “Positively gloomy.”

“I was getting some shut-eye,” Crowley objects, motioning vaguely as he shoves his glasses back on. Then he repeats, “what are you _doing_ here?”

Aziraphale fusses with the drapery a bit, then turns round and fusses still more with the sleeves of his shirt. “Well, I called you quite a number of times, for one thing.”

“Come on, now, don’t be cross.”

“I’m not cross!” Aziraphale says, crossly. Then he sighs. “I called you quite a number of times, and you didn’t pick up, not even after the voicemail like you usually do, and, well…well."

Oh, _oh._ Something in Crowley’s chest spreads its wings and flies. A wide, smug grin smears across his face. He leans back on the couch, regarding Aziraphale upside-down, sort of like a child, or an overdramatic scarf.

“Don’t look at me like that, you old snake.” Aziraphale squirms in place, vaguely scandalized.

“You were worried about me,” teases Crowley. “You were,” he starts again with a snicker, but gets cut off unexpectedly-- “Of _course_ I was!” 

The room falls morbidly silent for a moment, the two of them too focused on staring (or, in Aziraphale’s case, adamantly not staring) at each other to speak; it’s broken only when Crowley’s sunglasses tumble off his head and clatter hollowly to the ground. Aziraphale’s gaze travels erratically upward in a stream of frustrated energy as he struggles to gather himself and start his next sentence. Eventually it finds its way out of his mouth with all the rhythm and pomp of a stately, but ultimately under-practiced marching band.

“We have been friends, for _six, thousand years,_ Crowley. And after both of us being ab _duc_ ted by our respective -- agencies, of course a silent spell would-- would--!”

Crowley finds that his mouth has abruptly decided to take a labor strike on him. “W--uh, I-- I’m sorry, Angel, I didn’t mean to twist you. Honest,” he adds, performing complicated acrobatics with his upper body over the arm of the couch in an attempt to right himself without breaking eye contact. His right hand scrabbles against the dark tile floor and eventually closes round an arm of his glasses, while the other grips fresh stress lines into the red leather cushions. Aziraphale, for his part, just shifts uncomfortably in place.

“No, I’m just...glad you’re alright.”

“Right.”

“Right.”

Crowley stares at him a moment longer, tapping his sunglasses against the couch and rolling his lower lip between his teeth. Aziraphale looks rightly put out, his brows still drawn together, his hands still wringing below his waist. It just won’t do to see him like this -- it makes Crowley’s skin crawl. “How about lunch?” Crowley asks, trying to drive the heaviness from the room. “My treat. I’ll drive, even.”

Aziraphale’s eyes flick up to Crowley’s, and a small, mischievous smile sneaks up on his face, catching his crow’s feet off guard. “I hardly think your driving is a treat,” he points out, unable to stop himself.

"Oh!" Crowley stands quickly only to stagger back just as fast, his hand clutching his chest. “You wound me, Angel,” he moans.

“Just get the car, you daft fool.”

“Oh! Such harsh language! You’re sure you aren’t Fallen?”

“ _Crowley!_ ”

Crowley’s laughter bounces against the high ceilings of the flat, and as not-cross as Aziraphale wants to be, he can’t help joining in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all still baffles Crowley. Aziraphale is an angel -- he can sense love, he’s done so in the past. And it’s not like Crowley is exactly subtle, by his or anyone else’s standards. He’s a basket case, really. Aziraphale should be able to clock him from a hundred yards.  
> \--  
> In which I spend a baffling amount of time talking about a root vegetable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to start by saying that I was absolutely overwhelmed with how well-received my first chapter was. This is the first time I've posted any fan writing to one of these fic-posting sites, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the reception. Thank you so much for reading thus far.  
> That aside-- I ended up making myself an Amino for Good Omens! My username is onelater. You can follow me if you want, I'll likely be posting on there only about as often as I post on here though.  
> I hope you enjoy the second chapter! It got much longer than I thought it would, but I couldn't find any earlier place to cut it. This one's not quite as comedy-centric as the last one, but I hope it'll still be enjoyable. <3

Lunch proves to be quite _exactly_ a treat.

Crowley reins in his speedometer on the way, by Aziraphale’s request. They end up going to this sweet little cafe on a cozy little streetcorner, one of those places with the cute farm-themed signs that people always say, _oh, we should go try that place sometime, looks sweet and cozy and cute,_ but then they never actually do. As Crowley pulls into the parking lot, he thinks he probably wouldn’t bother with the place either, if it weren’t for the fact that Aziraphale got so excited upon seeing it. This really does not say much, because if not for the fact that Aziraphale loves food so much, Crowley would probably not bother with eating out in general. After all, food makes his mouth feel weird, and if he’s going to subject himself to that particular breed of torture for the sake of upkeeping his mortal body, he might as well have it be by his own stove, as it were.

But today, Aziraphale is here, and so is Crowley, and Aziraphale is delighted by the homey decor, the wooden tables with familiar, flannel-y looking tablecloths, the mismatched chairs and silverware and dishware. It’s not one of their usual haunts, for certain, and Crowley is intimately aware of how out of place the both of them are, what with Aziraphale dressed for a fine dining establishment and Crowley looking like a dishonorably retired rockstar. 

Somehow, though, they slip into their seats and feel mostly at home, if you ignore the unusually excellent service they receive. Crowley doesn’t even have to miracle that into happening. He just watches the manager watch Aziraphale nervously as he sits down, falsely assuming that Aziraphale is a food critic or health inspector or something or other. Lovely that, saving him the effort.

They receive their drinks, and Aziraphale orders a pressed panini for him and Crowley to split. (Crowley says he’ll pass, but Aziraphale insists.) Then, once the waiter disappears with their menus, Aziraphale takes a breath, his face taking on that funny expression he gets, and Crowley gets the distinct feeling he’s about to try and fail to broach something delicately over lunch. His suspicions are confirmed when Aziraphale says, “I’m not sure if it’s my place to say this, but… if… the-- the state of your-- if what you were doing in the flat was in any way related to-- to that friend, just. Know that I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”

Crowley blanks. “What?” he answers, intelligently.

“The friend. The friend you lost,” Aziraphale insists, shifting in his seat. “You mentioned them at the pub, that...that you lost your best friend. I know-- I can’t imagine-- I know it must be a lot to go through, and I--...well. If you need to talk.”

Oxygen waves goodbye to Crowley’s lungs. It waves goodbye to many parts of Crowley, including his bloodstream, his muscles, and his functioning brain cells. 

“Ah,” he says.

Aziraphale, sensing a misstep but not knowing the direction, rushes to correct with all the well-meaning but erratic energy of a blind road paver. “Of course, of course, I know, it’s not really my place to ask about these things-- they’re very personal-- and, and, I just pulled you out of the house for food-- I can imagine this is not where you’d like to be to discuss this--”

Crowley’s ears swim. “Yes,” he says, mostly to get Aziraphale to breathe.

Aziraphale’s words trainwreck to a stop. He eyes Crowley as subtly as he can, which is to say, not subtly at all. “Yes, what?”  
“Yes.” Crowley wonders how much he wants to divulge here. His fingertips dance a circle across the rim of his coffee mug, the dull tapping barely audible under the music murmuring awkwardly, apologetic of its intrusion, through the cafe speakers. “Yes, it… well, both. Yes. About wanting to talk about it, and, um...not here.” 

“Ah,” Aziraphale says. He nods just a bit too much and straightens out the front panels of his vest. “Right. Rather.”

Before the pause between the two of them can grow into a silence a waiter appears, thank Somebody, from the kitchen and places a disturbingly quickly cooked panini on the table. Aziraphale beams and thanks the waiter, who nods and bustles off to another table. He cuts off a piece with his fork and knife (and, really, who eats paninis like that?), bites down, and hums, satisfied, at the taste. Even Crowley has to admit, the aroma wafting off of Aziraphale’s plate _is_ pretty enticing.

“Scrumptious,” Aziraphale proclaims upon swallowing. He dabs at the corners of his mouth with a napkin, cuts off another piece, and offers it to Crowley. “Do you want to try some?” he asks.

And Crowley does.

\--

After they pay but before they can leave, a waiter halfway sprints to their table and, in what the establishment no doubt believes to be a very clever bribe for their well-off food critic, deposits a bottle of wine and a bottle of champagne next to the check -- "on the house." Aziraphale, guilty over a misunderstanding in which he played no part, leaves them a hundred quid tip and hopes it will foot the cost of the two vintages. The flustered display of politeness charms Crowley so much that he decides not to tell Aziraphale that he miracled them into the cafe's basement.

\--

Twenty minutes later, Bentley tries its best to fill a Silence between an angel and a demon. It’s struggling, though; it’s been a long time since it’s had this role, and it’s feeling a bit rusty. It tries for some upbeat bebop, something that the demon enjoys and the angel does not. There’s not much to be done in trying to make them both happy, though. The demon just sighs.

“Angel,” he says. “You’re staring again.”

“What? Oh, yes. Right. Sorry.”

“That’s alright.”

More Silence. Bentley stutters abortively through several tracks before finally landing on “Under Pressure.” Aziraphale eyes Crowley under the pretense of checking the radio and finds him with an unreadable, tense expression, glaring through the windshield like it’s committed him a personal offense. Curiosity gets the better of his discretion.

“What are you thinking about?” Aziraphale ventures at the same time Crowley exclaims, “ _Bricks_!”

Aziraphale sends him a bewildered look. “Bricks? You’re thinking about bricks?”

“That’s what you get hit with,” Crowley continues, not listening. “A _ton_ of _bricks_.”

Aziraphale pauses. He purses his lips, gearing up to wonder aloud at his thought process, but then he gentles. “Crowley,” he says, quiet and indicative.

“Oh,” says Crowley. “Right, you wanted to talk about…”

“If you’re ready,” Aziraphale adds, wringing his hands. “I don’t want to force--”

Crowley decides just to rip off the bandaid: “It was you.”

“ _What?_ ” 

“You know-- the bookshop? One big ol’ _Inferno_?” he continues. Perhaps it’s morbid to already be making jokes, but he's about ready to discorporate himself if he can't disperse the tension. “Thought you’d been right shishkebabed.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale breathes, an odd tone to his voice.

“Oven-baked? Honey roasted? Pan-fried?”

“Not everything has to be a joke, Crowley.”

He barely resists the urge to roll his eyes, sighing tightly. “Look,” he snaps and drops his voice to a hush, “I saw the fire and I just _assumed_ \-- I thought my lot had sent someone up to fuck around with me for going against the plan, saw you-- just-- bumblin’ about your store and thought, oh, right on, ‘I can nix his-- nix his b-- his best friend.’” Crowley can feel Aziraphale’s eyes on him like hot pokers against his skin, but he can’t bring himself to look. Instead he conjures an unconvincing charade of nonchalance and busies himself with the intricacies of parking along the curb. “And I couldn’t sense you anywhere on Earth, ‘cause you’d already… gone up-- Up, I guess, so… until you popped into that pub, you pretty much…”

The skin under Crowley’s left sleeve lights up as Aziraphale places a hand on his bicep. “Crowley,” he says. He waits for Crowley to look him in his big, blue, apologetic eyes before he says, “I’m...I am so sorry.”

Crowley could scream. Or explode. Or both.

"...that’s alright, Aziraphale. It’s not your fault,” he says. He pulls the key out of the ignition, pops out of the car with wine and champagne rack in tow, and speed-saunters toward the front door. “You didn’t know.” 

Which still baffles Crowley. Aziraphale is an angel -- he can sense love, he’s done so in the past. And it’s not like Crowley is exactly subtle, by his or anyone else’s standards. He’s a basket case, really. Aziraphale should be able to clock him from a hundred yards.

\--

The thing that Crowley doesn’t know, though, is that sensing Love does most certainly not work like that. _It’s an art, not a science._ That’s Anathema saying that, and she’s talking about auras, but it applies, in a more or less similar sort of way, the same way that a Bentley and a body can apply, provided the occupants of said Bentley are distracted for long enough and the body is travelling at breakneck speeds on a perfectly normal velocipede. But, ah; we digress. 

\-- 

And we will continue to! 

Right back to that night a few short days ago, Bentley racing along a back road, the dark trees blending into a black-and-brown sea on either side, the moon yawning patches of light through the canopy. 

“Love,” Aziraphale had said. “Flashes of Love!”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Crowley had responded, fighting off hysterics. 

Between miracling the stain off Aziraphale’s coat, pressing Aziraphale against a wall, and stealing glances at him instead of the road, Crowley thought maybe all that Love Stuff had started to leak through the cracks in his Very Suave, Very Cool persona. He -- again -- did _not_ know how any of that Love Stuff worked, but he imagined it was clear, obvious, concise. If someone’s feeling Love for another person, Aziraphale would probably be able to sense it, could tell you exactly where it’s coming from and exactly who it’s going to. Like seeing a laser beaming from one person to another, filled with...hearts. Or something.

But in reality Love is very environmental. It’s very vague, very oddly shaped and very difficult to place. Think less classical and more abstract surrealism. 

Things get even more tricky if the Love-haver is actively trying to repress their Love. Like, say, if an occult being were to clench his hands against the steering wheel until the leather and metal conform to the shape of his calluses and, maybe, oh, I don’t know, threaten his car radio with an impromptu exploration of the bottom of the Mariana Trench if it dare play any love songs. Hypothetically speaking, this sort of conduct would muddy the waters.

In any case, the Love Aziraphale was sensing that night was not that Love. When he said _flashes of Love,_ he meant it quite literally -- pop rocks of Love shattering across the eyes, leaving a sugary taste in the ears and nose. He didn’t want to say it at the time, but the erratic way it was travelling had him thinking, _Good God in Heaven, I think someone Up There has gone and let Cupid loose again._ (He would later find out that that was indeed the case, although he had not been related to this particular incident.)

Really though, the reason Aziraphale did not realize was quite simple: he did not know because Crowley did not want him to.

\--

“Still,” Aziraphale insists. He thinks the front door to the bookshop open and jogs into step next to Crowley, helping him carry the rack. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner.”

Crowley doesn’t know how to respond to that; he just grunts and hopes it’s sufficient. 

It must be, because Aziraphale keeps going: “I feel like a right fool. After all, I think of you as my best friend, too.” He smiles sheepishly. “What kind of best friend does that make me that I didn’t?”

“Ngk,” says Crowley.

Aziraphale thinks the door shut behind them. From there, they totter together to the back room and then up the stairs to the flat, all the while the wine and champagne suspended between them like a beloved child being swung by its outstretched arms. Aziraphale produces glasses for the two of them -- wine for himself, champagne for Crowley -- and pours them full; they banter and laugh and discuss local politics together, and then they fill them again. 

Crowley suggests they try a little drinking game with the nightly news, and so they bumble downstairs to the couch in the back room and put it on Aziraphale’s ancient, ringing TV. Aziraphale is five gulps into his wine before he realizes Crowley is influencing the hosts into cursing, and by then he’s too far gone to really get cross. He hits Crowley on the shoulder with his unravelled bow tie and laughs himself silly. Crowley takes off his sunglasses and watches, camouflaged both by the low light and by Aziraphale’s tendency to throw his head back when he laughs, and wonders once more if Aziraphale can feel the love wafting off him in tsunami-sized waves. He wonders what it must feel like.

The more he thinks about it, the more nervous he becomes; it’s not just that he doesn’t know if Aziraphale can tell, it’s that he doesn’t know _how_ Aziraphale would be able to tell. He can’t take countermeasures because he has no idea what the regular measures are. It’s like someone plucked an executioner from the French Revolution, dropped him in Cold War Russia, and told him not to get spotted by the KGB. “What the hell is a KGB?” he would probably ask, waving his long cigarette frenetically. “And what of these strange metal beasts what prowl your streets? Oh God, why must you vex me with these horrific visions?” he would continue.

Crowley, despite the terror clawing up his throat, laughs at his own joke, because of course he does.

Aziraphale sends him a bemused look, having since sobered up from his gigglefest. He tops himself and Crowley off with a snap of his fingers, altogether too comfortable slumphed against the couch to bother doing it manually, and smiles, small and slow. “What are you on about now?” he asks.

Crowley opens his mouth to share his lovely daydream about the psychological torture of a hypothetical Frenchman, but what slips out instead is, “What’s it like, sensing Love?” in a voice altogether too soft for its own good. He almost finds it in himself to be embarrassed of the non sequitur. Almost. He’s just a bit too drunk for that. 

Aziraphale, for his part, just sounds faintly surprised. “You really don’t know?”  
“‘Course I don’t. I’m a demon.”

“Well, you were an angel once,” Aziraphale says, as though Crowley somehow forgot.

“Mm, never got to explore Earth.” Crowley’s eyes drift to his champagne, and he swirls it around a bit, amusing himself with the bubbles. “She kicked me out way before all this.”

Aziraphale makes a small noise of understanding, then looks off, ruminating. 

Meanwhile, Crowley’s mind drifts again. When was it, exactly -- when did he leave? He knows he helped design some flowers and star systems before; he can remember that much. But any more than that just blurs together. Hanging up the last Alpha Centaurian star. Seeing Lucifer and his crew protesting. The Forget-Me-Nots, the bluebells. The clandestine meetings. The dandelions, the poppies. The revolution. The Falling, the landing. The landing was always so much worse than the Falling. But it was, he reasons, the only way he could’ve survived long enough to get here. With Aziraphale.

"Why did you want to know, anyway?" 

Crowley's head jerks up. "W, I, s'jus', y'know, a-- I was just curious."

Aziraphale eyes him sideways over his glass. "You've known me for 6,000 years. And, an'this”-- here he gestures lazily with his wine glass --“is the first you've asked about it." He squints at Crowley searchingly, then gasps. "Crowley! Are you--?"

"No! Well-- wuh, uh, I--"

"You are! You're in love! You must be! So who could it possibly--?"

"Aziraphale, _please_."

"Well, certainly it mustn't be Anathema."

"Obviously!"

"I mean, she's a lovely woman, don't misunderstand, but she's taken, Crowley; she and Newt are very--"

"No! God! Christ! Fuck! Aziraphale!" Crowley rubs his forehead with his free hand, cringing. "Look, jus', could you tell me? Please? It's not important who it is. I just want to know."

“Well,” Aziraphale starts. He looks upward thoughtfully for a moment -- that lovely little line returning between his eyebrows -- and then down again. He opens his mouth and takes a breath, but then stops and shakes his head, at a loss. “I don’t think I can describe it. It’s a bit ineffable, I’m afraid.”

“Hate that word,” Crowley grouses.

“I know.” Aziraphale tilts his head. “Although, I could…”

“You say it just to spite me,” Crowley adds.

Aziraphale tilts his head this way and that way, scrunches his eyebrows together and then pulls them apart, judging the weight of a thought held between his ears. “Well, I suppose…you know, I suppose I could just show you.”

The pause between them is eight months pregnant. Aziraphale turns finally and looks at Crowley, whose facial expression says that he most certainly does not know.

“You what?”

\--

The way transformation works is relatively simple, as far as Powers go. Two occult beings make some kind of physical contact, like holding hands. Then they reach out with their minds and sort of wave ‘hello’ to the other mind, making mental contact, as it were, and as long as both parties consent to the transformation, they can alter their earthly forms and perform a swap, passing their incarnations over to each other like an ethereal, high-stakes version of hot potato. Before Aziraphale and Crowley had performed their first, clandestine transformation the night before the Trials, it had been unheard of -- or at least undocumented -- for an angel and a demon to transform each other. It was an angels-and-angels thing, or a demons-and-demons thing, as most things were.

But it’s not the start or the end that’s most important here. Picture again, if you would, that game of hot potato. Most people concentrate on the potatoes and the seconds where the players have them in their hands; but do try to shift your focus from that and instead to the moments between the potato-holding. The potato passing parts, we’ll say. During these split-seconds of sweet, starchy relief, the burning, tinfoil-wrapped potatoes dance in the air between adjacent players. The potato is, in that second, nobody’s potato and everybody’s potato. It is equally between one potato-passer and another. If someone were to draw up a diagram showing this and ask you to identify which person was the potato-passer and which person was the potato-catcher, you would not be able to answer. 

At that point in time, anything is possible. The potato-catcher could catch the potato, and the line would move on as expected. Or they could catch it, shriek at how hot it is, and drop it on the floor, thus turning hot potato into smashed potato. Or they could miss it with their hands because they’re blind in one eye and it messes with their depth perception, and then it could land on their foot instead, one big, overcooked, tin-foiled cannonball turning big toe into smashed toe. Or, if some occult beings were to decide that they wanted to live in the space between the passing and smashing, they could simply sit there in static animation, potato and catcher and passer all pure potential energy, waiting to be struck into kinesis.

At least, that’s Aziraphale’s theory.

\--

“Give me your hand.”

Crowley obliges immediately; the thought to question this hits him belatedly, only after he overcomes the overwhelming feeling of Aziraphale’s hand around his, the gentle weight of his fingers, the carefulness with which he holds Crowley. "Why?” he asks, a beat or two off.

“My thinking is,” Aziraphale begins, placing his wine glass on the table, “if we half-transform, you should be able to see through my eyes. We’ll share a vision; so I should be able to show you that way, if we just...stay there a while.”

“You’re sure that will work?” Crowley says.

“No, not exactly,” Aziraphale responds. He pulls his knee up further onto the couch, trying to face Crowley more fully. “I’ve never half-transformed before. I’ve only ever even tried transformation at all with you.” (Here, Crowley finds himself disproportionately thrilled.) “But it’s worth a shot.”

“Right,” says Crowley.

“Right,” says Aziraphale. Then, gathering himself, he continues, “It’ll be just like last time, only we won’t finish the transformation.” He clears his throat and wiggles a little in place. “Nothing to be nervous about, it’s just a little--”

“I’m not nervous, angel.” Crowley is, actually, but one doesn’t say it. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“No,” Aziraphale insists, surprisingly firm. “No, I want to show you. I just needed to get it into my head.”

“Right then,” says Crowley. He steels himself. “Ready when you are.”

“Right,” says Aziraphale. He takes a deep breath, squeezes Crowley’s hand, and then they’re off.

From the outside, it’s a lightshow. The transformation starts as a glow in the spaces between Aziraphale and Crowley’s hands. Then it spreads, shimmering off their skin, painting gold into the air above their fingers and forearms and rumpled up jacket sleeves, all halo and hellfire. Eventually the outside-parts of their bodies turn into reverse silhouettes, their brightness standing out from the rest of the room in much the same way a neon sign would stand out in an Elizabethan candle shop: blinding, beautiful, and vaguely terrifying. The spaces between Aziraphale and Crowley become the spaces among Aziraphale and Crowley. The parts where they touch -- their knees bumping, their hands holding -- become simply parts of them. Oneness, almost, but volatile with nerves -- atoms hopping between them in a constant flow -- a mutual thermal neutrality of mass and matter -- a lump of crumpled up tinfoil, frozen nanoseconds before it explodes in the microwave -- a humble potato suspended in the air.

Inside it’s decidedly more subdued. Like falling asleep, really, all over their bodies, pleasantly fuzzy, their skin getting wine-drunk and sleepy, crashing on the couch for a midday power nap. Crowley does his best to remain calm as his vision blurs, then shivers and flickers, the atoms of his body growing a tad bit confused as they make awkward small talk with Aziraphale’s, like a group of non-union workers given a break period of indefinite length. For one brief terror of a moment, his vision kaleidoscopes. Then, as abruptly as it started, it stops, and Crowley -- or whatever this conjoined self could be -- finds himself standing at the entrance to the bookshop. 

_Easy,_ says Aziraphale. The body -- no, not a body, sort of just a loose suggestion of being -- takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. _We’re not in either of our bodies right now. It might feel a tad weird._

 _Yeah,_ Crowley responds. _Just a bit._

There are quite a few things that are very weird about this arrangement:

  1. Aziraphale is inside Crowley’s ears, or whatever the hearing-things of a noncorporeal suggestion would be called. (Do suggestions have ears? Must do. It’s how they hear other suggestions.) It’s like having a really high-quality earpiece on, but also like having fifty of them on, or maybe having hundreds of speakers encircling him that project Aziraphale’s voice at a gentle, but all-consuming volume. He feels, in a word, enveloped. Cradled by the sound.  
He thinks briefly about passing out.



_Easy,_ Aziraphale reminds him at a deafening murmur. _Easy._

The suggestion does not pass out, because

  1. Crowley is not in control of the suggestion. It seems to be moving-and-not-moving on its own, swaying from side to side with an unseen tide, buffeting under unfelt winds. This is actually not so weird the longer Crowley considers it. It would make sense that a suggestion that makes use of Aziraphale’s Love Vision would be, by default, under Aziraphale’s control and not Crowley’s. He reasons that if, say, Aziraphale would ever like to try turning into a really big snake, they’d probably just do the reverse. This logic does not, of course, make the unprompted smoothing out of the suggestion’s loose-fitting, cream-colored shirt or the unexpected placing of the suggestion’s not-hand on the doorframe any less strange, over-stimulating, or unnerving.
  2. The bookshop, which, to the best of Crowley’s alcohol-riddled memory, is typically of a normal hue, is currently awash in honey-gold. It’s not a light emanating from anywhere. He knows because if it was, he’d see shadows in purple-blue, but at the present they’re more of a milky rust-orange reminiscent of burnt Velveeta. He doesn’t know what to do with this information. Also,
  3. there are orbs.



… 

Like, just, orbs. Strewn about the bookshop. Big, fuzzy orbs of colorful smog levitating in the air at various locations -- forgotten at the cash register, tossed like a ragdoll onto the armchair, peppered throughout the aisles of look-but-don’t-buy books. The size varies seemingly at random. One pair, for example, tucked in the romance aisle, is timid and miniscule, barely the size of a two-pence each; meanwhile, in the backroom, he can see a massive cerulean blob pulse, straining, just above the coffee table. 

_What are these?_ Crowley asks; but he has a feeling he knows already. So does Aziraphale. 

_I’ll leave you to it,_ he says. _Just-- do be careful. This form isn’t corporeal, so it’s not as though it’ll be prone to damage, but do… do be careful._

Crowley feels, in an odd sort of way, Aziraphale pass him the controls. The suggestion suddenly becomes weighted, grounded, like it’s almost achieved personhood, and Crowley can probably believe that it did, if he discounts all the weirdness. He flexes the not-fingers of the suggestion’s not-hands and nods a little bit, testing the weight, noting the smoothness and looseness of the joints. There’s a hair of lag every time he moves, but he can’t tell if that’s a product of the arrangement or of his own drunkenness. He studies this feeling for a few moments in a bit of a daze, just sort of examining the relationship between intention and action. It fascinates him quite completely, until he remembers his manners.

 _Thank you,_ thinks Crowley, slightly abashed. _For letting me do this._

 _It’s nothing, really,_ Aziraphale lies. Crowley lets him.

Taking a deep breath, Crowley gathers the strangeness of the suggestion’s body and starts walking. First, he just tests out how it feels -- how the sound carries and does not carry when his not-shoes hit the wooden floor, how quickly and slowly he can move. Then, satisfied with his testing steps, he looks about the room at the orbs scattered about. The two in the romance novel section; a few dropped, like incandescent marbles, along the floor, or rolling about the air like faeries; the one playing a one-sided game of peek-a-boo with him from the back room. He wavers indecisively between them, but eventually decides to start with the closest one -- pale green waiting at the cash register.

As he gets closer, the notices that the things are… strangely warm. The sensation, he thinks, hovering his hands around the volley-ball sized orb as if it’s a fire in a streetside trash can, is a bit like the way handwarmers feel: from a distance, mild, but he gets the feeling that touching it would very nearly burn. Still, he can’t deny feeling drawn to it, as he was to the sun in Eden; some things don’t change. He curls his fingers inward toward the ball of light and slowly, degree by wary degree, eases his hands into the floating bath of warmth that rests between them. Relaxation washes over him as he does so. He feels oddly reassured, like someone is giving him a gentle, loose hug.

A kind memory weasels its way into Crowley’s head: the store’s cool air conditioning breezing over a customer on the first sweltering day of summer. The kind smile of the shop owner, delighting to show them around. An unknown book which will soon become a favorite. _I haven’t got enough money for it,_ the embarrassed sigh. _Quite alright; there’s a chair in the back where you can read, if you’d like._ The pleasant surprise that his offer is serious. The days spent sheltered from rain among the smell of paper and dust. Nostalgia seeping into the faded ink. Curiosity, too, at this wonderful man who never asked a single pence. And something else below it. Something about the whole shop that makes his heart clench, his stomach turn and ache, in, Crowley admits privately, a very familiar way.

All this to say, it’s working. Crowley is sensing Love.

 _That clever little bastard,_ Crowley thinks. His energy vibrates, something like a laugh breezing through it, if only the suggestion knew what laughing was. _Clever-- look at this! It’s working like a-- like, like, like a charm!_ His heart sings, swells, bursts within his chest. His lovely, clever-clever angel -- of course he could sort something out. He not-laughs again and half-walks, half-dances toward the pair in the romance section, but something gives him pause. Something out there resonates with his song. Snags on one of the notes, catches him by the coattail and tugs. 

Crowley follows it, in the vague way a suggestion does, from the cash register to the glowing blueness at the back of the store. It gapes at him, murky depths shimmering and expectant, in its portentous hover above the table, an omen. Crowley eyes the orb warily. He almost wants to turn back, but he can feel something pull him closer, something begging to be heard and acknowledged, poor thing, begging for help. Already half-regretting it, Crowley passes his hand through the fog and watches it meander placidly back toward the couch, the one he and Aziraphale are on, back home, back in the real world.

Ratty old thing. Ratty old blanket. Lovely memories, though. Plenty of them mundane; plenty of them so terribly, wonderfully domestic. Watching Aziraphale eat those chocolates Crowley bought him after the store opened. Splitting cups of cocoa on a cold day. Getting drunk and asking stupid questions. Crowley reaches out and touches the couch, runs his not-hand down the familiar fabric, feels the familiar lumps and bumps beneath his not-palm. He smiles a private smile, all to himself, proud of his lovely little angel; and then the couch begins to glow, and he feels the resonance once more, and he realizes.

That’s his Love. He recognizes it. Well, it recognizes him, really -- it’s recognized him for a much longer time than the other way around. The couch gives a little burst of gold at him, as if to say, _nice of you to finally turn up. Was wondering when you’d pop on by and say hello._ It seeps up into his fingertips, wrapping around the tendons and muscles and little fleshy bits holding him together. It warms him up right nicely. It gives him shivers. 

_I’ve been so afraid of you,_ Crowley thinks to it.

 _I know,_ it responds. _I don’t mind it, really. I’m always here anyway. Nice place to get stuck in-- lovely atmosphere, even if you are terrified of me._

Only, Crowley finds he isn’t anymore. It suddenly feels very okay. It feels deep, abiding, inevitable. He loves Aziraphale, because of course he does; of course. How could he not? It aches in a primordial spot of the body, somewhere beyond sense memory, indeed, beyond sense entirely, beyond body and the atoms that make it up. He sighs out a breath that he has been holding for 6,014 years and watches the little ocean spill from the couch and wash through the rest of the bookshop, mixing with the yellow and turning it a consuming green-emerald.

He feels oddly at peace in a way he hadn’t before. Like even if nothing works out, at least Aziraphale will be warmed by it, will bathe in its enthralled viridescence, will sit in his leather chair and feel Loved as he works on his next ancient translation. He feels peace wash over this being of his that reaches out into the space of the bookshop. He feels like floating. And, peculiarly, he feels proud. Proof, that is, that demons can love. It’s one, big, glowing aura of _fuck you._ And Crowley made it all by himself. 

_Oh… Oh, Crowley,_ Aziraphale thinks. 

Crowley knows, because he heard it.

At once, the situation makes itself known anew. Aziraphale is seeing, right now, all the same things Crowley is. Aziraphale had always seen that Love, seen it hanging about his bookshop, bumbling sleepily about between the sofa and the door, but he hadn’t realized, by the sound of things, who it was, hadn’t shaken its hand and sorted out its odd, impossibly familiar memories. If Crowley had just kept his mouth shut, if he hadn’t gotten so damn curious, but of course he did, he’s always curious, always has been, always will, especially when he’s drunk. Drunk. Yes, drunk, off of weak champagne no less, giddy off it really, bubbly-babble drunk, his hand, cradled in Aziraphale’s, merging with it, melding, the two minds mid-change, and stuck there. _Stuck_.

Suddenly Crowley feels very claustrophobic. His gaze spins 360 degrees through the bookshop, the colors of Aziraphale’s books and the customers’ Love and Crowley’s Love all blending together like one enormous, shitty oil painting. He feels Aziraphale try to take control again and, _easy, easy,_ keep them from toppling over, but all that accomplishes is the controls splitting, disorienting, one car with two adversarial steering wheels veering through the guard rail of a five-lane highway. Easy, easy, it most certainly is not.

 _Oh, Crowley, dear,_ Aziraphale thinks, and yeah, that about does it.

Crowley’s body jolts back out of the transformation. His skin tingles all over, unpleasantly, like morning breath, or maybe pins and needles. When his vision returns he finds himself still staring into Aziraphale’s eyes, and they’re so soft, so blue, so gentle, that Crowley finds himself wanting to throw up. And he’s still holding Crowley’s hand: three fingers trapped in Aziraphale’s palm.

“Don’t start,” Crowley snaps.

“Crowley, just listen to me,” Aziraphale pleads, and he’s so gentle, so careful with him, that Crowley decides he just can’t take it. 

He shakes his head disjointedly, something in his chest swelling up to his tear ducts, and wishes, desperately, drunkenly, to be anywhere, anywhere but here -- to simply wink out of existence and avoid Aziraphale’s careful rejection a little while longer. And, bafflingly, it seems he gets his wish: one moment, Aziraphale is holding the hand of a wide-eyed, hyperventilating demon, and the next, he’s gone.

\--

It takes a lot of energy to create a miracle.

Minor miracles, piddly little things like changing an outfit or saving a sack of books, those aren’t so bad. Small change. They add up, of course, but you’d have to change a great deal of outfits and save a great deal of books for it to really start to show. Those things come back to you quickly. It’s the bigger miracles, the real doozies, that take a toll on you, that you have to space out and choose wisely. 

Crowley has just instantly teleported his entire body without the assistance of a telephone line. There’s a reason why he and Aziraphale don’t just go around zipping themselves from one place to another -- they travel, on foot or in a tricked out car, like humans do, because they have to, because they’re at least sort of humans, and human bodies aren’t made for that kind of travel. During teleportation, the body un-exists for a moment -- just a split second, really, just a flash in the pan, just the shortest little eternity -- and then it re-exists somewhere else. Human bodies are made to exist very linearly and very consistently. Half-human bodies, like Crowley and Aziraphale’s, can bend the rules a little bit, but it’s still a strain. Under normal circumstances, this is completely manageable, if a little bit taxing, but normal circumstances do not always apply. Especially if if the teleporter in question, hypothetically speaking, just finished doing something incredibly stupid, like, say, drinking fifty times their fill of gifted alcohol, suspending themselves in an atomic limbo for forty-five glowing minutes, and accidentally confessing capital ‘L’ Love for their best friend of six thousand years. These types of circumstances would, theoretically, of course, make someone’s form a little sloppy.

He falls, for one thing, about a foot and a half from the air, straight on his ass. And his whole body feels wrong. Like putting your pants on backwards and only realizing once you get to zipping the fly. The pins and needles from the half-transformation have only worsened, stabbed deeper into his skin, as it were. He can feel it deep into his muscles, down into his bones, licking at the marrow like some sickly, incorporeal hellhound snapping into its late lunch. He’s exhausted and a little delirious, and he’d really rather like to crawl into bed now and just sleep existence, in all its awkwardness and idiocracy, right off.

He manages to sit up with great effort, sloshing champagne onto his jacket in the process, and it’s only then that he realizes he took his leftover champagne flute with him. The dainty little glass rests between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. The apartment spins around it as he stares. He imagines he can only partially attribute that to the alcohol.

Alcohol. Now _that’s_ an idea! But some meek champagne simply won’t do.

Crowley burns his last scrap of energy to miracle the flute of champagne into a tumbler of whiskey. He downs it in one swig, launches the glass against the unforgiving stone wall of his flat, and promptly passes out on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter! Lemme know what you think! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Eat," he says. “How are you feeling?”  
> “Fine,” says Crowley.  
> The kettle on the stove whistles, and Crowley winces and drops his head into his hand. “Hungover,” he amends.  
> \--  
> Crowley realizes some things. Finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Started making it. Went to college. Bon appetite.

The first thing Crowley notices when he wakes up is that he definitely, definitely has a hangover. Even as consciousness just begins to bleed into his mind, he can feel the headache pounding behind his tightly shut eyes, pulsing like a nightclub one offense away from a civil disturbance lawsuit, and he rolls over, pulling his blanket tightly round himself and burying his head in his downy pillow.

Wait. Blanket? Pillow?

Second thing, which has him bolting upright: he’s in bed. Like, tucked in, safe and sound in his plush, queen-sized bed. He’s still in his clothes from the day before, though the jacket is hanging carefully from his door, alongside his crumpled up tie. He squints around blearily and eventually finds his alarm clock: nearly noon.

He’s in bed, though. He was drunk last night, but he remembers every minute of it. He leans forward, head in his hands, scrubbing at his eyes. He passed out last night, and it was on the floor in the middle of his living room, not anywhere near the bedroom. And Crowley has never been a sleep-walker. Which would mean, then, he should’ve been awake when he got into this bed, he should remember walking here, but he doesn’t, which means he must’ve been carried… 

“Oh,” he says. “Wow. Fuck me.”

Then his stomach growls. This comes as a shock, because Crowley gets hungry about once every other century. Which brings us to the third thing: there is a kitchen. In Crowley’s flat.

There has never been a kitchen in Crowley’s flat. Crowley hates cooking. He hates the whole process. When he said he’d rather it be by his own stove, he meant it as a pun, a fun little play on words, because he hates stoves, frightful little things, always an hour or three of distracted staring out a window from burning down a flat, and when his body decides it’s time to get hungry -- it does so at random, given the strange effect occultism and divinity have on the body -- he miracles up something basic, like an egg sandwich, and gets it over with. The turning on the stove, the heating up the food, the checking the temperature to make sure he doesn’t give his stupid body food poisoning -- it’s all just too much.

But now, there is a kitchen in his flat.

After his realizations vis a vis bed-and-carrying-and-hunger, Crowley stands (slowly, ever so slowly) up from the bed and, sliding against the wall, starts his way down the hall. He’ll post up in the living room, he figures, and snap up some fried eggs and have a good, thorough wallow concerning the state Aziraphale’s now assuredly seen him in. This is his plan, really, up until he gets to the door into the living room and gets smacked in the face with Her (apparently much different) plans.

Third thing A that Crowley notices: a smell. A wonderful smell, actually. Eggs, butter, bacon. Good old proteins and fats, frying up something gorgeous. He can smell it from the doorway, and though he normally considers food a last resort, he now finds himself watering at the mouth just standing here and taking it in. It’s really quite pleasant, and it makes Crowley’s stomach growl.

Third thing B that Crowley notices: there’s been some radical revisions to his floorplan.

Normally, the living room ends in one solid wall. He never really was one for an open floor plan, they remind him too much of bizzare corporate offices with vibrant employee “families” that do karaoke together, and he generally prefers having corners and things to lurk behind anyway. Now, though, that wall is gone. In its place there’s a small half-wall at the end of the living room functioning as the marker toward the kitchen as well as the edging for the counters. The plants and the couches are untouched, but there’s that little half-wall where the end of the room used to be, and this lovely little kitchen standing there, waiting for him. 

It’s halfway like the rest of his place -- the dark wood table, the slate countertops -- but there’s something decidedly different about it in everything that seems familiar. The table, though darkwood, is a circle, tucked in the far right corner of the room, with three little wooden stools around it, light filtering in on top of it from the big single-hung window framed with flannel curtains that match the tablecloth. He can see more light streaming in over the sink, shining bright steel along the wall, the doors of the casement window thrown open to let in the crisp morning air as it buffets the looser parts of its curtains. All the colors are dark, but the fabrics are cozy, and all that natural light from the windows just washes over everything, making the whole event some strange, but comforting mix of imposing and endearing, like a king cobra wearing a hand-knit sweater vest. 

And then, of course, fourth thing -- Aziraphale, standing just to the side of the sink, fussing with something on a black metal gas stove, moving his spatula against his cast iron skillet with a confidence and determination that makes Crowley question his consciousness. The light from the windows turns the stray edges of his curly hair into a halo glowing around his slightly sweaty face. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, exposing his fuzzy forearms, the muscles that tense and release as he adjusts his grip on the pan. There’s something bizarrely intimate about seeing Aziraphale in a kitchen at nearly noon with a soft blue apron around his waist, something about seeing him out of his suit jacket and tie and just disheveled enough for Crowley to feel like he’s settled in, like he’s been here for a while, and plans to be here for even longer still. It’s intimate, it is, and Crowley doesn’t know what to do about it. He just stands there, watching, gaping.

Before he can think of what to say or how, Aziraphale spots him in his periphery. “Crowley! You’re up,” he says, his tone somewhere between happy and nervous as he turns and wipes his hands on his front. “Come on, sit down. I’m just making some lunch.”

Crowley does so, in part because he has no idea what else to do in this situation. It’s like speaking a foreign language. His bare feet interrogate the odd, hardwood floor as he walks toward the alien table. His palms wonder at the smooth, yet homey texture of the wood-grained chair backs, and then again at the soft, worn-in shift of the green tartan tablecloth. As he sits, he gets the sense he’s entered an entirely new world.

In a sense he sort of has. This whole room is entirely new. It wasn’t here the day before, and the atmosphere is totally different, the kindly, squeaky cabinets and the bright, natural light and the stovetop fluttering gently with blue flame. He imagines Aziraphale must’ve thrown the whole thing together a few hours ago. Must’ve showed up here and decided he wanted a cup of tea, the old-fashioned way, and maybe one thing lead to another and, well.

This is about when Crowley realizes (fifth thing) all the different implications. In bed, blankets tucked gently around him, jacket on the door. Food on the stove. Aziraphale’s favorite teapot with the chipped teal enamel and the cartoon ducks tucked in one of the open cupboards. Aziraphale, here, now.  _ Oh _ , he thinks.  _ Wow. Fuck me. _

Aziraphale sets a plate and fork down in front of Crowley. The ceramic plate, lined with a light floral pattern and displaying an array of over-easy eggs, toast, and hash browns, absolutely astonishes Crowley. He looks between it and Aziraphale, mouth gesticulating silently. 

"Is this for me?" he asks.

Aziraphale nods expectantly. 

"You made this…for me?" he presses.

Another nod.

He feels like he's been shot through the chest. "Angel," he starts, no idea where he's going with it, "I--"

"I know you don't like to eat," Aziraphale interrupts, bustling off to the stove, "but you'll need to at some point. Besides, you really taxed yourself yesterday, and--"

"Why are you here, angel?"

Aziraphale stops mid-breath. He looks over at Crowley with a complicated expression: his lips tight and flat, his eyes squinting, his chest pulled up in what will soon become a sigh. A little sad, a little exasperated. He starts to say something, but then he just shakes his head and pushes Crowley's plate closer to him.

"Eat," he says. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” says Crowley.

The kettle on the stove whistles, and Crowley winces and drops his head into his hand as Aziraphale, mercifully, removes it from the heat. As he turns around, the angel raises a brow at him, mild concern marking his features.

“Hungover,” he amends.

“Ah. Yes. You never sobered yourself up before you left.” He flashes an apologetic smile and pours out two cups of steaming water, setting the kettle on top of a kitschy little kettle-shaped metal stand. “I imagine you’ll have to wait it out the old-fashioned way by now. Body’s already started to work through it.” 

He produces a little silver spoon from a drawer, and a small dish of sugar, and, at which point the only thing proving to Crowley that he’s not having a fever dream is his splitting headache, begins stirring it into one of the cups in small increments. His hands, thick-fingered and blunt, look dainty as they go through the precise motions, his wrist following a circle Crowley cannot see over the cup. Beyond that, there’s the roll of Aziraphale’s thin, linen sleeves up to his elbows, the folds of the apron tied around his waist, the tenderness of the comfortable silence as it stretches languidly between them. Crowley’s eyes travel up along Aziraphale’s arm in a daze, just watching the pieces of him move and enjoying the quiet. Then, after a moment, Aziraphale clears his throat gently. Crowley’s eyes snap up to his, and he’s surprised to find amusement (???) creeping onto Aziraphale’s lips. He shakes his head a little,  _ dotingly  _ ( _??? _ ).

“Eat,” is all he says.

Crowley belatedly realizes (sixth thing) he’d forgotten to put his glasses on. It’s a bit late to miracle a pair up now; he just lowers his gaze, suitably embarrassed, and tucks into his food. 

Most of that passes in quietude. Aziraphale focuses mainly on making his own food, so Crowley is left to his own, piecing through the plate slowly and with a surprising amount of enjoyment. It’s simple food, but it’s also been a while, Crowley reasons, and even plain water tastes wonderful after going without for long enough. There’s that, and then there’s of course the simple fact that Aziraphale made it. If he’s being honest with himself, which he isn’t, but if he is or ever will be, Crowley must admit, polishing off the last few shreds of hash, that Aziraphale could’ve microwaved him some Kraft macaroni and cheese and it would still be the most wonderful thing in the world. As it is, Crowley picks up his teacup and tests the temperature with a few tentative sips. When it finally hits his tongue, it’s sweetened just the way he likes it.

“Are you feeling any better?”

Aziraphale is standing at the new sink, manually washing off the dishes. He’s always had a bit of a fixation on human rituals. Washing the dishes by hand, putting them on plastic racks to dry, setting them in the cupboard precisely with careful hands not to scuff the cabinets.  _ I do love their little nick-nacks, _ Aziraphale told him once, admiring a set of novelty salt and pepper shakers.  _ So quaint, humans. _ He doubts humans usually manifest whole kitchens out of nowhere, though. 

“Yeah, uh… I’m getting there,” Crowley says.

“Good.” Aziraphale smiles a little faintly and wipes his hands off with a dishrag. “I have, ah… well. I’ve got something to show you, I suppose.”

Crowley’s heart stutters. “Uh,” he responds. Then he hears himself saying, “yeah, sure. ’course.”

“Come on then. The living room.”

Crowley’s living room has always been somewhat in need of some TLC. The barren floors, the simple couch. Usually Crowley doesn’t care enough to think of it. He’s always sort of enjoyed the spaciousness, the echo, the chill. But watching Aziraphale sit down on that far too modern furniture for the first time in a good number of years, Crowley’s heart pinches in a way that he’s forced to tamp down before he can join Aziraphale. He does his best, then sets his coffee mug on the table. He doesn’t bother with a coaster; this table has learned not to stain.

“Now,” Aziraphale says, looking about as frantically trying-not-to-look-nervous as is physically possible, “I have something I want to tell you, but quite honestly I doubt you’d listen to me if I actually said it. So I’m going to-- I want to show you instead, if you’ll indulge me.”

Crowley’s knee bounces. “Right,” he says.

A smile flickers across Aziraphale’s face. He reaches out a hand, which Crowley takes. “Are you ready?” he asks.

“Sure,” Crowley says. “Yeah,” he adds, just for good measure.

“Right.” Aziraphale smiles again, the way someone does when they might be about to throw up. Then he squeezes Crowley’s hand, and their bodies fuse.

\--

Strictly speaking, does Aziraphale  _ need _ to squeeze Crowley’s hand? No. In fact, holding his hand this way is entirely unnecessary; the only thing that really needs to happen is some kind of physical contact. Angels would sometimes fuse together by placing their hands palm to palm, or by reaching their hands out in a recreation of Michelangelo’s  _ The Creation of Adam. _ This latter was, of course, outlawed after Michelangelo ended up on the other side of the war, but the angels who did this were already having a bit of a laugh about the gesture before Michelangelo got condemned, and so the Forbidden aspect only made it funnier. Famously, one fused angel said upon being caught performing the Forbidden gesture, “What are you going to do? Fall me?”, at which point they fell.

The point of all this is, of course, that when Aziraphale takes Crowley’s hand, holds it gently and loosely like he’s comforting a frightened animal, and squeezes it, he’s creating an unspoken, unnecessary, entirely emotional ritual that neither of them has to uphold.

Not that Crowley knows, of course. Not that he would change it if he did.

\--

Vision returns. They’re standing in front of the coffee table, across from the couch. In the hazy gold tint of the suggestion’s sight, the room looks familiar in a way that last night’s experiment doesn’t altogether account for. It itches in the back of the suggestion’s head, like a suspicion just a dash away from being confirmed. In their periphery, Crowley can see the alien kitchen sparkle extravagantly in the lighting, and he thinks about going over there and sussing out why it’s getting Special Aesthetics, but Aziraphale’s in control right now, and as it is, he’s focusing their vision pointedly on the couch. 

_ Ah, fuck _ , Crowley thinks, a little delirious from lingering sleep.  _ You again. _

“There. You see? That’s your Love,” Aziraphale says from everywhere, ignoring this.

The splotch of emerald green smearing across the couch mocks Crowley silently.

“ _ Yesss. _ Yes, I know.” Mortification creeps upon Crowley again. “Of course I know. Why are you showing me this?”

Crowley feels their conjoined chest moving up and down, the lungs expanding, as Aziraphale takes a deep breath. Then he turns around. He walks away from the living room and the bizarre, sparkling kitchen, down the hallway, past the fallway, and to the door. “You know the old saying, ‘walls work both ways?’” As he reaches the door, he rests their hand atop the handle and stills. “Well,” he says, tapping their pointer finger anxiously on the discolored metal, “well, so do doors.” Then he opens the door, and he steps the both of them outside.

It’s a nice, sunny day. Cars snail by. People pass them, too, walking around their conjoined body without seeing, busy and polite on the residential street, maybe a child in tow, maybe a briefcase. Aziraphale cranes their neck up and the sky above them is powder blue and patchy with clouds. It’s nice and calm, but altogether it’s a little normal, and Crowley’s about to ask what he’s supposed to be seeing when he realizes the sky is blue.

Not green. Blue.

Aziraphale turns them around slowly. He looks up at the house; the slate, granite exterior, the gloominess of it, the dark green tone of the thick, craggy grass; but then the door, open in front of them. Deep deep down into the hallway, they can see the tendrils of emerald green waving from the living room door. Right in front of them, the entrance: a shivering wall of sweet honeysuckle gold. Aziraphale reaches their hand tentatively toward the doorway and stops just millimeters before it, and Crowley can feel the heat radiating in waves. He wonders how he hadn’t before.

“Do you see, Crowley?” Aziraphale asks him at a deafening murmur.

“Angel,” he starts, no idea where he’s going with it, “I--”

Then Aziraphale reaches their hand into the cloud, and it all leaves him.

\--

The Story is not as linear as one would hope for a direct information transfer like this. Crowley’s, it’s easy – you start at the Beginning. That first smile. After you fall once, you know exactly what it feels like to fall again, and Aziraphale was just so delightfully unintentional that Crowley had thought,  _ oh, fuck me _ , and barely put up a fight. Of course, he hadn’t put a word to it. Words were commitments, and it’s not exactly good form to commit to someone you’re supposed to pretend to be enemies with. So he avoided the word. He did it well enough by just not reading. Great way of avoiding words, that.

Aziraphale’s story is more complicated. Hours after this, Crowley will look back at the jumbled mess of tangled storylines involved in his Story, and he will think of Aziraphale on the tarmac. The stumbled beginning, the hesitation, the self-amused smile, “Well, he was a… wily old serpent, and I was  _ technically  _ on apple tree duty.” There had been an impression that Aziraphale had thought about telling this story for a while, and he was quite satisfied at having mapped it all out. 

The Cloud of Love is not nearly as organized, though. It has never really had any reason to be -- it’s always been just itself around here, really, and, ah, sort of let itself go, it seems to chuckle frantically, casting about. 

It starts at the Beginning. Then it says, no, no, this isn’t right, this isn’t where it started; and it jumps forward and it jumbles around there, rustles in the drawers and curses under its breath wondering where it could’ve put it. Then it trips over something and spills right into the middle, and that’s a little warmer, it is, but colder with every passing second, and so finally it throws its hands up and says, bugger all, just take the lot. And, Somebody help him, Crowley does.

–

In the end, really, there’s too much for it to happen any other way. It’s like getting into a cold pool in the heat of summer -- no use trying to ease yourself in, you just have to jump into the deep end and deal with it, let your body sort out the sensory wildfire in post.

So it hits him with everything and everywhere and everywhen all at once. Flashes of Eden, the wing extended over a tentative companion, wondering how he could trust an angel so easily. Flashes of lunch dates in Paris and Rome and Beijing and New York. Flashes of running and hiding, of assignments gone awry just the way they'd planned. Flashes of flying over Europe trying to pinpoint a certain demon's location. Flashes of staring at Crowley's profile in dark light, of watching the light and dust gather on his skin, of marvelling. Flashes of seeing plays, even Gloomy Ones, and delighting in the proximity of the seats, in those moments where their arms would brush on the rests and even when sometimes neither of them would move away. Flashes of a whistle echoing in a chapel, and of pads of fingers brushing over knuckles. Flashes of a tartan thermos. A hand always grabbing at his coattails.  _ Be safe _ , always the desperate whisper.  _ Be safe, we’ve only got each other. Well, no, it’s me, really, it’s me, I’ve only got you _ . 

Then eventually, after much confusion and checking under couch cushions and sifting through cluttered drawers, it reaches under its bed and waves its hand around and then, oh, yes, that’s where it left the Beginning; silly me, slippery little things, Beginnings, tricky as anything, always getting in trouble. Trouble is the name, too; what else could you call a plan so awry? The speeding shiver of emotions, the whistle, fire playing where it shouldn’t be. Then, a weight in Aziraphale’s hand that transfers quite industriously to his heart. The stare. The silence.  _ Lift home? _ The delayed nod.

That night, after all of it, Aziraphale returned to his bookshop. He placed the bag of books back on his threadbare couch and then sat across from it in the armchair, observing it in wonder. The wooden handle gleamed golden in the light.

“My,” he had said, and that about covered it all, didn’t it.

Finally, a deep sense of calm. This couch in this empty flat. Aziraphale had helped Crowley to move in, so long ago. What little sense of physical warmth and clutter that dotted its way through the space Aziraphale had coerced Crowley into welcoming. That night, once all the furniture was in and assembled (too much of it to bother trying to miracle, unwieldy, lots of screwdrivers), once the plants had been potted and the water had been sprayed all over the fresh, dense soil, once the dark had fallen and the factory-new lamp had been switched on, spilling familiar amber light precariously throughout the room, once, indeed, this fledgling home knew some semblance of peace, Aziraphale sat with Crowley on the couch, a knit blanket stretched between them, and shared coffee that neither of them needed. They had not said much, but during the companionable silence of the newly furnished room, Crowley had looked at him, and he had smiled.

For a man who claimed to be cold-blooded, Aziraphale thought, Crowley had never looked so warm, so beautiful.

\--

Reality inches its way back into the equation like it’s awkwardly interrupting an intimate conversation. In a way, it sort of is, when Crowley’s face fades into Aziraphale’s, and the honey light of the freshly assembled lamp casting gold into their eyes shivers into the cold white light streaming in from the open windows, and the feeling returns to Crowley’s fingers in thumps of rushing blood, then it is an intimate conversation, a very intimate conversation, that their atoms are just now ending, and one very long overdue. Crowley, now gently returned to his own body, tilts his head down to their hands and blinks back wet eyes, reviewing it all with the vague feeling of putting together a shattered vase with shaky hands and stale glue. He can feel Aziraphale’s eyes watching him, waiting patiently. Eventually Crowley can’t take it anymore.

“Well,” he starts, his voice Not Breaking. “You had a lot to say, hadn’t you.”

“A bit,” Aziraphale agrees. “Picture speaks a thousand words, all that.”

Crowley can hear him smile. His free hand drifts on top of Crowley’s; then he changes his mind and brings it up to rest on Crowley’s cheek instead, the other lacing its fingers in Crowley’s. Crowley leans into the touch, feeling quite fragile and seen, and isn’t seen just the word of the day. His worst fear, realized; a wish he could never have dared to have, fulfilled. Crowley screws his eyes shut in a moment of fierce anxiety before popping them right open again, overcome with the need to see him back. Wide, naked eyes. He watches as Aziraphale somehow smiles a second time, slightly abashed, feels his thumb pass over the soft skin of Crowley’s cheek.

“My dear-- I must say,” he says, somewhere between wry and self-deprecating, “I rather thought I was obvious,” and the incredulousness that floods Crowley’s system pushes him swiftly past whatever grog had clogged up his throat.

“ _ OB- _ vious?!”

“Well--”

“When had you  _ ever _ \--!”

“Well I rather thought I’d just shown you,” Aziraphale says -- no,  _ laughs _ , the cheek!

“You know bloody well that’s not what I mean!”

“You really don’t need to flirt to be clear about--”

“That usually is how these sorts of things go, actually!”

“Well, fine; surely you remember Paris.”

“You’re using  _ Bastille _ as an example? All you did was insult my outfit!”

“I was being  _ coy! _ ”

“W-- you were being a right ass, is what you were being!”

Aziraphale laughs again, and Crowley is somewhere between argument and infatuation, but then Aziraphale leans in and kisses him and all other options grow faded and far away. He leans pliantly into Aziraphale, his eyes fluttering shut. A vulnerable noise hitches in the back of his throat, keening, as he pretends not to hear himself. Aziraphale’s hands light up the thin skin on Crowley’s rib cage, then wander up and along his back and find rest at his shoulder blades, his fingers pressing just the slightest bit down on him every so often as they explore each other, tentative and enthusiastic and patient in turns. And there are many, many turns. Meanwhile, light from the windows spills across the couch in lazy, rectangular beams. The coffee grows cold on the table. Crowley realizes (seventh thing) that he’s rather okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice something different? You should! The chapter fraction is out of four now. You can think archive user svpportive for that! On July 11, 2019, I responded to one of their comments saying that their enthusiasm “makes me tempted to figure out some kind of epilogue tho.” Welllll… guess what that fourth chapter is going to be. ;)  
> I’m sorry about how long this took. I got into a sort of perfectionist rut this chapter, which is why I’ve been sitting on it for literally weeks. Now that I’m in college, I can’t promise the fourth chapter being a quick thing, but know it’s in the works.  
> Sneak peak from the draft:  
> "It is wonderful, and it is terrible, because with all of that wonderfulness he feels he doesn’t really have the right to indulge in such a decadent wallow. He has everything he could ever ask for, after all -- the roof over his head, the sun through the window, the bed beneath him and, of course -- who could forget? -- the warm body beside him."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's the thing: forever is an attainable goal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bet you thought you'd seen the last of ME! HAHA! i lost steam several times with this chapter, and i got super busy because of college, but it felt so wrong to just leave this where it was, especially after i'd promised an epilogue. it's shorter than all the others, and much sappier, but it says what i want it to. hope you all like it. :)

It is a fine Spring morning in London, and Anthony J Crowley is wallowing.

It’s been quite a good wallow, actually, quiet and introspective. Meditative in a way, too, watching the wee hours of the night wither into the wee hours of the morning and the sunlight pour streakily into the sky like spilled watercolors. He would normally keep the shades drawn, pull the blankets dramatically up to his shoulders, maybe tip his head back against the headboard. But, ah-- things are different these days.

He has a kitchen, for one thing. After Aziraphale miracled that whole set-up into his apartment, he just never bothered to get rid of it. The first excuse was that it’d take too much effort to, and he was drained for a good week or so. This was true, and also the bane of Crowley’s existence. The morning after everything happened, Crowley drove himself and Aziraphale to get lunch, and upon coming out of the cafe he’d found a parking ticket on his dashboard. _No parking between 11 and 3, what fucking bollocks, who follows that,_ Crowley thought, and miracled the ticket away. Only he didn’t because he couldn’t, and he almost passed out. (Aziraphale took care of the ticket but couldn’t stop him from ranting about it on the way home. “Humans _live_ like that?!” Crowley had half-yelled, wild-eyed. “They get parking tickets and they just have to _pay_ them?!”)

Then the second excuse was, well, he’d already moved quite a bit of stuff into it by the third week. The gramophone sat testily beside the counter. Some of Crowley’s smaller plants basked in the fresh light of the new window. Aziraphale’s teapot rested placidly on the stove, his cups sequestered in the cabinets, his dinky (“ _Charming_ ,” Aziraphale had called them, “and quaint”) little embroidered dish rags hanging from the oven door. Really, by then, the investment was too large, the inconveniences too innumerable. It would be simply too difficult to figure out where to put it all; there was clearly no room in the rest of Crowley’s vacant, ascetic flat for any of this.

By the fourth or fifth week, that excuse became true, in a way. When he woke in his own flat -- sometimes it was Aziraphale’s instead, but when it was his own -- he would rise slowly, reluctantly, from bed, come downstairs, and make himself some coffee. The human way, with the paper filters and the ground up beans. Then he would put some water on for Aziraphale, miracle the whistle silent, set a teabag in a cup, and wait. There is too much in this little routine, too many little joys, the kind you would miss the same way you would the comforting press of a favorite ring. 

Even the most mundane things, like coffee and breakfast, are not the same. Every morning he opens the cabinet above the sink and flutter to find a familiar set of matching cups, or a new one Aziraphale had bought somewhere, the kind with suns and moons or lovely, hand-spun curves. He looks for creamer in the fridge and finds a fresh bottle of it, the kind he likes, that he certainly hadn’t bought, and that Aziraphale must have picked up for him. He opens the silverware drawer and pulls out a novelty spoon and smiles at the text on it, something stupid, like, _drink this tea and think of me,_ or maybe custom, with little wings on the hilt. He stands at the window and stirs the creamer in. He watches the sunrise like he’s a sunflower, waiting to drink it in. He barely even thinks. And if the plants lean toward Crowley while he drinks his morning coffee, leaves twitching with pleasure at the feeling of his Love spreading through the air, piling up in the mason jars left out on the drying racks, he is too absorbed in the supernatural warmth of Aziraphale’s winged cup resting between his hands to notice. None of this would ever happen, could ever happen, except in this strange new space, where everything he touches came from Aziraphale’s hands. It is alien, and it is wonderful.

It is wonderful, and it is terrible, because with all of that wonderfulness he feels he doesn’t really have the right to indulge in such a decadent wallow. He has everything he could ever ask for, after all -- the roof over his head, the sun through the window, the bed beneath him and, of course -- who could forget? -- the warm body beside him.

Crowley turns, shifting reluctantly away from the heat of Aziraphale’s front against his back, and observes him for long moments, watching the motes of dust float down and land on his nose. There is an odd youthfulness to Aziraphale when he’s like this, Crowley thinks. Like maybe he’s not thousands of years old, maybe he’s only thirty or forty, a human who runs a bookshop and worries about simple things, like taxes and fashion and mortality. He smiles at the thought. He loves Aziraphale so much. Loves him, Crowley thinks, sometimes too much for his own good. Then he leans forward and presses one kiss each to both of Aziraphale’s eyelids.

“Get up, angel,” he murmurs. “Breakfast.”

Fifteen minutes of gentle boyfriend-herding later, Crowley smiles broadly as he watches Aziraphale bumble sleepily around the kitchen. He shuffles -- honest-to-Someone shuffles, in his little bunny slippers and his oversized t-shirt -- from the cabinet, to the sink, to the stove, filling their favorite teapot (the teal enamel one with the ducks) and setting it to heat, eyes near-closed the whole way. It used to be that Aziraphale only got like this, at least around Crowley, when he was wine-drunk, sitting spineless against the couch and talking nonsense. They still do that, quite often, but now almost every morning he gets the same beautiful view. Aziraphale, up late, the tea, the lazy breakfast. His bookshop hours are suffering for it. _All the better,_ Aziraphale claimed one morning, resisting the call of professional life. _Less kicking people out._

He watches the light filter in through the dust motes lazing about in the air in front of the sink window. He watches Aziraphale’s happy, wrinkled face. The kindly crows’ feet near his lovely eyes. The way his hair, rumpled from sleep, flattens on one side and puffs out wildly on the other. He thinks, as he has many times over the past few months, that he’d like life to be like this forever. Waking up late and staying in bed later, making coffee the human way and closing his eyes to listen to the morning birdsong, watching Aziraphale grumble as he messes with the kettle. He thinks about saying as much, but then...best not, he had concluded at the end of this morning’s wallow. Best be safe, not to move too fast, to scare him off, although these days Crowley doubts he could if he tried.

Aziraphale reaches up into one of the tea cabinets, straining to reach a teabox on one of the higher shelves. It’s quite cute, the way he looks when he concentrates. This little line between his eyebrows. Crowley can’t help the slow smile that captures his lips, the way water captures a riverbed -- slowly, and inevitably.

“Crowley, dear,” Aziraphale says as he fiddles the tin open -- it’s always a bit sticky. “Grab us cups, won’t you?”

 _Us._ “Of course,” Crowley assures.

He turns to the cabinet and pulls out a set of teacups for the morning. None of them match. Today, it’s a sunflower and a Russian nesting doll cup. He sets them on the counter beside Aziraphale, then leans against it, his hand propping his head up by his chin.

Aziraphale places the teabags in the cups, then fiddles with the strings. He opens his mouth to say something, his eyes sleepily serious, but stops short when he turns and finds Crowley staring at him. It shouldn’t be such a shock anymore -- Crowley does this all the time now -- but ever since he persuaded Crowley into wearing his glasses less, Aziraphale just has his breath stolen away at every turn. Crowley’s eyes -- they’re lovely.

The initial shock overcome, Aziraphale fights back a bemused, besotted smile. “My dear,” he says. “Whatever are you looking at? Do I have something wrong with my hair?” He grins at this, touching the spot where it always flattens.

But Crowley shakes his head, dreamy. “No,” he says. “You look perfect, angel.”

Aziraphale sighs a little, shakes his head, that lovely little smile perched on his lips. “You old snake,” he says.

Crowley grins. “It’s true. Perfect. You look perfecter every day.”

“That isn’t even a word,” Aziraphale objects, but his laugh betrays him. “You’re ridiculous.”

“That I am.” Crowley reaches out and takes Aziraphale’s hand. Aziraphale smiles down at them, then lifts them to his lips, still smiling, and plants the gentlest of kisses to Crowley’s hand, on the back, just above the middle knuckle.

 _I love you,_ that means. Crowley knows that now, but Aziraphale always translates.

“I love you,” says the angel. The heavy words sound so light today, right now, like they hardly weigh a feather. “I do, I love you, you funny little snake.”

Crowley’s lungs deflate like punctured airbags. “Me too,” he says.

Then he gets this beautiful, dopey smile on his face, cheeks pinking, dimples at the corners of his mouth, just the picture of love and contentedness. Aziraphale watches the glint of light in Crowley’s bare golden eyes, richer than the rising sun, and his chest swells. He looks so beautiful. He’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He looks beautifuller every day. “God,” he thinks with a deep sigh. “I can’t wait to marry you.”

Crowley’s eyes widen. The silence yawns. Aziraphale goes rigid. 

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathes. “Oh, I’ve said that out loud, haven’t I.”

Crowley nods slowly, though Aziraphale was being rhetorical, actually.

“Ah,” Aziraphale says. “Well,” he adds. “Fuck.”

\--

There are many things that humans participate in and value angels and demons don’t quite buy into.

One of them is linear time. As a product of mortality, human beings value time greatly and have constructions surrounding the institution of time that reflect this. They count seconds, and minutes, and hours, and days, and weeks, and months, and years, and they do so religiously, because they can see their own bodies react to it. Even if a human did not have a watch or a calendar on them, and maybe they were plopped into the wilderness somewhere remote and told to survive, among the daily chores of fighting wildlife, building shelter, and feeding oneself, they would likely also track the passage of time. “I have been lost for one day,” a survivor might say as the sun sets for the first time, making a tally mark on a nearby tree. “We’ve been lost for three years,” that same survivor might say, clutching a basketball with a face drawn onto it in gaunt, leathery hands. 

The shortness and abruptness of their lifespans also accounts for the ferocity and depth of their love; given how little time even the longest living humans have, any amount of time spent loving and being loved in return is a precious gift, a delicacy for the soul. Plop two humans in love with each other into the wilderness somewhere, and alongside their tally of days survived, they will continue to track their anniversaries. “We have been lost for six months,” they might say. “Happy two year anniversary,” they might continue, placing a hand on their partner’s thigh, a kiss to their eyelids. “I love you.” Any human only has a precious few decades before they die, so they count and they love out loud. They celebrate. 

The tradition of marriage in humanity has been a constant, varying in shape and meaning, for hundreds upon hundreds of years. For much of recent history, marriage was a practical agreement, an arrangement, one might say, based around money and status and class. In the modern world, most marriages are not like that; at least, humans don’t want them to be like that. When two humans marry each other in the modern world, they are declaring to themselves, to their partner, and to the world, that they will love that person forever -- in sickness and in health; in good times and in bad. 

They are saying, I will love you as we grow old and wrinkly and our joints stop bending the way they should. They are saying, I will bring you soup when you are sick, I will change the linens and open the window, I will heat up the bath and I will hold a cloth to your forehead and I will rub your back while you cry. They are saying, I will love you forever. For as long as I can. For as thick or thin of a slice of ever as we are given. Until we return to the soil. ’Til our last day on earth. I will love you.

But angels and demons aren’t the same. Time doesn’t matter as much. Their bodies don’t regularly get hungry, nor do their faces wrinkle, nor does their hair grow without their consent. Given a desire and lack of outside influence, angels and demons could sit on the same plot of grass for thousands of years, watching a mountainside ungulate with the building up and removal of earth, of sediment, of trees and rivers and human communities. They have, in this way, a sort of time immunity, a chronological inertia.

And that’s the thing about Crowley and Aziraphale: forever is an attainable goal. 

\--

Crowley has not stopped looking at Aziraphale.

“Ah,” Aziraphale has said. “Well, look, it’s not-- I’m not-- you don’t have to say anything,” he has continued.

He has lied. Crowley’s unusual silence has been stretching on for fifteen seconds now, and Aziraphale’s skin is crawling so much, he thinks it’ll learn to walk soon.

“Really,” he continues lying, motioning nervously with his open palms. “Really, you don’t. I know it’s a lot-- to say-- and I-- I love you, and I don’t want to scare you with this, I-- it’s not really important-- I haven’t even gotten _rings_ yet--”

At that, Crowley blinks, the life and motion seeming to return to his body. He looks away from Aziraphale, then back again, then plants his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders, thoroughly halting Aziraphale’s nervous rant, and says, “Wait here,” and Aziraphale’s blood pressure decreases considerably. Then he runs out of the room.

Aziraphale’s blood pressure is very high again. 

“Wait-- what are you--?” he calls belatedly, turning to watch him bolt down the far hallway, his hard footsteps retreating. Diligently, though, he stays in his spot, wringing his hands and trying not to think too much as he hears a door thrown open, furniture pieces falling over, muffled curses. The irony of the situation is not lost on Aziraphale; the fact that _he’s_ the one who’s gone too fast this time, who’s scared Crowley off, who’s promised too much.

Aziraphale hears a slam, then a louder curse, and then Crowley’s hard footsteps racing down the hallway until he slides to a stop at the end, looking at Aziraphale with those same wide eyes, at which point he finally stops to catch his breath.

“Aziraphale,” he pants.

Aziraphale’s heart clenches. He looks petrified; he looks petrified because of what Aziraphale said. “Really, I’m sorry, dear, it was too--”

Crowley shakes his head, pushes off the wall with his free hand, and walks in four long strides until he’s standing in front of Aziraphale. It’s at this point that Aziraphale notices a small black box clutched in Crowley’s left hand, not a second before Crowley drops to one knee, opens the box and says, “Marry me.”

Aziraphale stops abruptly. His mouth gesticulates silently.

“I bought it myself,” Crowley says, to fill the air. His throat sounds freshly sandpapered. “The ring. With real -- real money. I walked into the store and everything. The clerk said silver would, would look good on you, and I thought so too, so I.” He swallows dryly. “Fucksake, would you say something?”

“Well I’ve already said quite a bit, haven’t I,” Aziraphale says, the bite and snap lost under a half sob. “Just-” he waves it away “-just get up here, you, you--”

Crowley stands, his hand fumbling to get the ring out of the box, but before he can Aziraphale has his head between his hands and he’s kissing him with so much behind it that Crowley nearly drops the whole thing. He just melts. Vaguely he feels Aziraphale press him back and back and then there’s the countertop against the backs of his knees and it’s all he can do to put the rings somewhere behind him, wrap his arms around Aziraphale, and feel every slow, sweet second of it.

They could’ve kissed for hours, days, weeks, and in fact they had in the past -- but Crowley runs his hand through Aziraphale’s hair a few times and Aziraphale pulls away not twenty seconds in. Crowley gives him a concerned look. Aziraphale just shakes his head.

“I want to know,” he breathes. “I just want to know how they feel.”

“Wh,” says Crowley.

He watches in confusion, then realization, as Aziraphale scrabbles at the countertop behind him, retrieving the black velvet box. Inside, he finds two simple bands -- one silver, one gold -- engraved with sloping, interlocking wing designs. Aziraphale tears up, just a bit, seeing them; Crowley always looks radiant in gold.

Aziraphale’s fingers fumble along the cool, unbothered metal ring as he picks it up. He slips it onto Crowley’s finger. Then they kiss and time departs. 

\--

Nighttime. Crowley, from his spot pressed against Aziraphale’s back, can see so many stars through the window. Light pollution has learned to avoid their house; he can see as clear at the explorers in Antarctica do. Nebulas, galaxies. Gorgeous. Humbling. His hard work, showing off.

Aziraphale hums contentedly below Crowley as the demon’s hands rake absentmindedly through his hair. Yellow eyes turn instantly back to his face, drinking in Aziraphale’s relaxed, happy expression with eagerness and adoration. 

“How does it feel?” Crowley asks on his next pass. His hand flattens against Aziraphale’s head, cupping the wild pillow-side fluff tenderly. The ring brushes the curl of his ear as he does.

Aziraphale sighs. “Perfect,” he says.

And it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the end! really, this time.  
> thank you all for being so supportive and kind. this was my first fan fiction, and i really wasn't expecting such a lovely response from the community. i love these two characters so much, and though i likely will be taking a bit of a break due to the business of school and such, i still have ideas for other things i might want to do with them in the future. keep an ear out for me; i'm never quite done.  
> if you want to contact me for any reason, my quickest response will be on tumblr (url 0nelater). it's not my main, so if you follow, i can't follow back, but i'm always happy to answer asks or chat in DMs.

**Author's Note:**

> Amino: onelater // Tumblr: 0nelater // Twitter (altho idk how to use twit so it'll be way less active than tumblr): oneiater (with a capital i) -- feel free to follow and/or drop a line!  
> Like this work? Consider subscribing to my profile! I'll likely be posting ficlets, comedic multi-chapters, and crossover fics in the near future.


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